I met Mony, one of the authors of Walking for Peace, at a conference about the Camino de Santiago in October 2015. I found Mony an engaging person to chat with and discovered during one of our talks that she had written this book. Because of that, I bought and read the book.
If you are looking to get a very good impression of the French Camino or bring back some of the memories from your own journey you can’t go wrong with this book. I found myself unable to put the book down and wanted to read what happened next – something I am used to in a good novel, but this is real life.
I asked for book suggestions a few weeks back on the Camino Facebook page and on the weekly newsletter and The Way, My Way by Bill Bennett was suggested in both, so I bought it and read.
“But I don’t think I can walk that far.”
“You can,” I protest. “The Camino is completely different from the Appalachian Trail.”
“How so?”
This is a sample conversation that I have had with countless potential pilgrims. Believe it or not, some of these conversations have been fruitful (resulting in the person deciding to attempt the popular Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Europe).
The tapas was excellent – so good that a restauranteur from a smart part of Bilbao was raving as much as I was as we nibbled plate after plate. I ought to know. I had tried most of the dishes which kept being passed through the hatch every few minutes. The chef behind loved playing with vegetable combinations. One minute it would be her inventive take on the classic tomato spread over toast that had me snapping up several plates and had them all laughing behind the bar; the next it’d be a superb aubergine concoction I would fail miserably to describe in words.
I enjoyed reading Wild: A Journey from Lost to Found by Cheryl Strayed. I found the book gritty, ruthlessly honest and inspiring. All that from a book that at first glance is about walking the Pacific Crest Trail. It is, but the book is also about Cheryl’s life to that point.
It is not often that I find myself being judgmental of an author while reading his or her book, but with Kurt I was. We are of similar ages, backgrounds, both of us had addiction issues and both of us left those behind many years ago – even though they are still something that defines us. So, sorry Kurt, although I enjoyed reading the book, initially I was not going to write anything about it. However, after my other half read the book I asked her what she thought and she really liked it. So here I am getting over myself.
